March 2016 Career Advancement Academies...Career Advancement Academies: Insights into CTL 5 CLP...

March 2016

Career Advancement Academies: Insights into Contextualized Teaching and Learning

CareerLaddersProject

2 Career Advancement Academies: Insights into CTL

CLP

CLP

3Career Advancement Academies: Insights into CTL

CLP

The Career Ladders Project (CLP) is a non-profit organization that works with community colleges—and their K12, university, workforce, community, labor and employer partners—to build capacity and redesign educa-tion and workforce systems. Over the last 15 years CLP has worked with a number of innovative and large-scale initiatives to more effectively move underserved youth and adults to college and careers. As initiatives mature, CLP works with state and regional leadership, philanthropic partners and policy makers to promote expansion and replication of successful practices and to identify and implement systemic policy changes that can better support evidence-based approaches.

CLP conceptualized the Career Advancement Academy (CAA) framework and worked with the California Community College Chancellor’s Office (CCCCO) to launch the statewide CAA initiative, designed to provide more structured educational experiences for students facing multiple barriers to post-secondary education. Early on, CLP forged a public/private partnership with the CCCCO and California philanthropic organizations—including the James Irvine Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Walter S. Johnson Foun-dation and the Bay Area Workforce Funding Collaborative—to support capacity building and coordination for the overall CAA initiative. CLP has played a critical role in coordinating and advancing the CAA initiative, supporting colleges to implement CAAs, building a statewide community of practice, documenting the work and working closely with the evaluators to improve the initiative over time.

About Equal Measure

About Career Ladders Project

Headquartered in Philadelphia, PA, Equal Measure provides evaluation and philanthropic services to social sector organizations. Our areas of focus include aligning systems for stronger outcomes, increasing access and opportunity, building human and social capital, strengthening community capacity, and elevating ideas for innovation. For 30 years, our clients have included major private, corporate, and community foundations, government agencies, and national and regional nonprofits. We have deep experience with initiatives that provide pathways for low- to moderate-income young adults to live better economic qualities of life, and have worked on an array of major national and regional programs for organizations such as the Citi Foundation, the Aspen Forum for Community Solutions, the James Irvine Foundation, the Lumina Foundation, the Strive Together Cradle to Career Network, and U.S. Department of Labor-funded grants in Wisconsin and the North-east U.S.

Equal Measure has been the Career Advancement Academies’ (CAAs) evaluation partner since 2012. Over the past four years, the Equal Measure evaluation has included a summative assessment of the CAAs’ impact on students, and an investigation into the likelihood of, and factors contributing to, the sustainability of the CAAs.


CLPCareer Advancement Academies IntroductionLaunched in 2007, the Career Advancement Academies are designed to enable underserved Californians – typically first in their families to attend college, low-income, or from communities of color – to enroll in higher education and adjust to emerging and evolving workforce and industry needs. Specifically, CAAs aim to increase the supply of middle skill workers by targeting under-prepared young adults (ages 18-30) whose low basic skills in reading, writing, and mathematics shut them out of post-secondary education and high-wage jobs. CAAs support students through a holistic set of interventions to build the founda-tional skills needed to complete postsecondary education and enter careers.

CAAs are intended as instigators of institutional change efforts. Rather than creating new infrastructures, CAAs seek to rework the system for delivering career education by integrating it into existing services. As such, the CAAs are not a “model” replicated uniformly across colleges, but rather a framework of common elements that provides each college the space for innovation in its interpretation and imple-mentation (See “The Career Advancement Academy Framework”).

The Career Advancement Academy FrameworkCareer Advancement Academies combine technical training and basic skills content into contextualized instruction, so that students acquire basic skills in a format relevant to their careers of interest. The CAA frame-work groups students in learning cohorts, provides them with intensive supports, and facilitates their career transitions. In combination, these elements build pipelines – or pathways – for students, leading from CAA programs to careers and/or continued higher education. The CAA framework includes five common elements:

• Industry-Responsive Technical Training. While often building on existing Career and Technical Education (CTE) courses, CAA programs ensure the relevance of students’ technical training by adapting and devel-oping course content in consultation with local employers. Success of CAA programs depends on their ability to respond to the labor needs of local industries. To keep current on industry trends, and ensure that students are trained in the requisite skills, CAAs build robust partnerships with local employers and Work-force Investment Boards (WIBs) to anticipate and respond to their needs. Employer partnerships also facili-tate students’ access to internships and, ultimately, job placements.

• Contextualized Teaching and Learning (CTL) in Basic Skills. CAA programs develop instructional approaches that contextualize basic reading and math skills with the technical courses in students’ chosen fields. Contextualization can be accomplished in various ways. Some CAAs contextualize reading, writing and math courses with examples and problems from the career technical field, while others integrate contextu-alized math and English directly into technical courses. Combining foundational basic skills with technical training allows students to make immediate progress toward their goals, rather than waiting to complete a succession of traditional basic skills courses. It also helps students see and apply academic content that is immediately relevant to their career. These changes require CTE and academic faculty to work together to provide basic skills content in the context of career-relevant technical coursework.

• Student Cohorts. CAA students take all or most classes together as a cohort throughout the duration of the program. The cohort model allows students to form peer learning communities, helping each other learn the subject matter and supporting each other through school, life, and career events.

• “Transitions” Support. To prepare students for success in the workplace, CAAs offer “transitions” support, including career guidance, work readiness skills, job fairs, internships, and employer visits. Faculty and administrators in support services bridge silos in order to provide comprehensive services to CAA students.

• Intensive Student Support Services/Case Management. CAA programs help students manage personal issues that might interfere with their ability to succeed in the program by working closely with the college’s counselors or referring students, as well as help students develop “soft skills” and college knowledge/success. Partnerships with community providers facilitate identification and recruitment of target CAA students, as well as provide social supports to students, complementing those available on campus. These supports help mitigate the external and life events that can affect student retention and completion.


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Nationally, less than 40% of first time community college enrollees earn a credential or transfer to a four-year university within six years of enrollment. In California, the figure is 46%1. Approximately two-thirds of students attending community college are identified as unprepared for college-level academics, and are assigned to pre-college remedial (also known as developmental) courses. The majority of these students leave college before ever attempting a college-level course in English or mathematics2. One of the key CAA elements is contextualized teaching and learning of basic skills. Nationally, contextualization of basic skills is increasingly seen as a promising practice to accelerate students’ progression through the basic skills sequence and support college completion (See “What is Contextualized Teaching and Learning and Why is it Important?”). The approach has also gained significant traction in California, including through the Basic Skills Student Outcomes and Transformation program, a $60 million state investment to reduce remediation through scaling evidence-based practices, especially acceleration, contextualization, and more accurate placement in the state’s community colleges.

Contextualized Basic Skills Teaching and Learning

What is Contextualized Teaching and Learning and Why Is It Important?Contextualization has been gathering attention as a possible path to education reform. Among reformers, there is some agreement that traditional teaching is often too removed from life and work. The lack of mean-ingful contexts makes it challenging for learners to activate their prior knowledge and make sense of new concepts and skills. When content is presented in an abstract manner, students often have difficulty relating it to course content, do not view it as relevant to their lives and goals, and struggle to maintain engagement. Even when students appear successful in traditional courses, they frequently have learned at a shallow level. Consequently, they struggle to apply the concepts and skills learned to future courses and/or employment. Contextualization can help overcome these challenges by creating a much more engaging experience for students, and providing relevant and meaningful contexts for learning activities within the context of an accel-erated career pathway.

Contextualized teaching and learning is a group of instructional strategies designed to link the learning of basic skills (reading, writing, and mathematics) with academic or occupational content by focusing teaching and learning directly on concrete applications in a specific career context that is of interest to students. Contextualizing basic skills education to a particular career field, in conjunction with other key CAA program elements, can contribute to:

• Increased basic academic skills gains – accelerated student learning, improved critical thinking skills, and problem-solving;

• Improved engagement and motivation;

• Improved progression and success in subsequent coursework; and

• Improved persistence in college level work, completion of college credits and a credential.

Please see the Appendix for a sample list of sources.


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AAs have been implemented in colleges across several regions of California and have provided a rich testing ground for more structured and integrated approaches to support student entry into—and progression along—college and career pathways. Elements of the CAA framework

have informed, and are becoming integrated into, major statewide college completion initiatives. Across regions, CAAs have seeded additional reform efforts, and have formed the basis for further work on a range of initiatives.3 However, opportunities exist to deepen the influence and application of what we have learned about quality CAA implementation, including contextualized teaching and learning, into current college redesign efforts.

Driven by strong buy-in and enthusiasm of individual faculty, instructors, support service staff, and administrators, over the last several years colleges have designed, tested and continue to implement key CAA elements, including contextualized teaching and learning. Much progress has been made by faculty in developing contextualized instruction and integrating foundational skills with technical programs of study. Yet, as the colleges have moved to scale and institutionalize these efforts, it has become apparent that without deep institutional buy-in, and commitment to removing existing institutional barriers such as faculty supports, curricular alignment, or shifts in course scheduling, implementation of CAA elements and contextualization will continue to occur in a piecemeal fashion – on program by program, course by course, or grant-funded to grant-funded bases. Until the CAA framework, including contextualized teaching and learning practices, are embedded in the very fabric of institutional priorities and functions, long-term sustainability will remain at risk.

Without that leap by the college, CAAs will likely be viewed as stand-alone programs, and not as a way of working within the college – even though many of these elements (e.g., accelerated curricula, just in time supplemental instruction, contextualization, and experiential learning) are critical to the success of all students, not only those enrolled in particular career technical programs. Institutionalizing the CAA framework, and placing it at the center of college reform efforts, will require a number of struc-tural changes ranging from departmental practices to curricular shifts. These practices and shifts include: allowing students to receive college credit for contextualized courses or recognition of competencies acquired through contextualized approaches, ensuring that courses and programs of study are “stack-able” and connected into a seamless sequence, making certain that incentives and structures exist for collaboration between career technical education (CTE) and English and math faculty, and developing broadly contextualized courses for fields of study, rather than narrow programs or single courses.

Driven by a need to understand where these institutional barriers persist, and how colleges may over-come them, this Issue Brief focuses on understanding what it takes to implement contextualized teaching and learning well. Specifically, the Brief addresses four questions:

• What are the “ideal elements” for quality CTL implementation?

• What does the implementation of these “ideal elements” look like in select CAAs?

• What are the institutional and structural factors that impede implementation of CTL as a core component of CAAs?

• What are the implications of these factors for institutional change and sustainability efforts moving forward?

The Brief is based on a series of CAA administrator, faculty, and instructor interviews. A list of interviewees and their roles is included in the Appendix.

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What Are the Ideal Elements for Quality CTL Implementation and Sustainability?

In Table 1, we present a working typology of “ideal elements” that interviewees have hypothesized as necessary to implement high quality contextualized teaching and learning. According to CAA and college administrators, faculty, and instructors, and supported by institutional reform literature, successful contextualized teaching and learning requires a combination of quality program design and implementation, as well as key institutional supports. These supports provide a foundation for long-term sustainability and integration of CTL and other key CAA elements into college functions.


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Institutional Supports for Scaling and Sustainability

• Faculty Incentives. Resources, professional development and institutional support for full-time and adjunct professors provide incentives to fully participate in CTL program design and implementation.

• Curricular Alignment and Credit. Alignment of contextualized coursework with the competencies needed for success in students’ programs of study as well as transfer/AA-level courses. Competencies gained via contextualized learning need to be formally recognized so that students can meet pre-requisites and proceed along college certifi-cate and degree paths without having to repeat learning via the traditional developmental sequence.

• Course Scheduling. Course scheduling to maximize student success (back-to-back, complementary, and supportive to their career pathway).

• Facilities. Space/facilities for high quality instruction and learning.

• Alignment with Institutional Reform Priorities. Leadership across all levels of the college is committed to leveraging institutional reform efforts to support and integrate CTL (e.g., moving to a meta-major, structured first-year experience, etc.).

Program Design • Contextualized Curriculum. Basic skills instruction integrated and contextualized with technical coursework that is part of a clearly defined CTE focus and career pathway, and is based on relevant regional labor market data to meet the scale of demand.

• Aligned Pedagogy/Instructional Modality. Quality problem-centered teaching strategies to support deeper learning: learning with understanding (knowledge); critical thinking and problem solving, collaboration, and effective communication (skills); and self-efficacy (academic mindset) – e.g., project-based, cross-discipline.

• Integrated Supplemental Instruction/Tutoring. Group/collaborative, peer learning strate-gies, and/or individualized tutoring to help students master course content in order to stay on track and succeed.

• Contextualized and Integrated Student Supports. Contextualized counseling and case management to support student progression and completion.

• Employer Partnerships. Employers participate in program design – defining occupational and soft skills needed for future employees and providing feedback on the effectiveness of the curriculum.

ProgramImplementation

Table 1.

• Curriculum Co-Development/Co-Delivery. Contextualized curriculum development, including clearly defined, integrated student learning objectives, developed by cross-disci-pline faculty teams and business partners. Cross-discipline team teaching of basic and tech-nical skills curricula.

• Targeted Student Recruitment and Screening. Clearly identified target population(s) and intentional student recruitment and screening strategies to support alignment between student aspirations and program goals.

• Faculty Recruitment, Training, and Assignment. High quality faculty recruit-ment and training in CTL theory and practice. Flexible faculty assignment to facilitate co-development/co-delivery.

• Structured Cross-Disciplinary Collaboration. Time and place for CTL faculty and student services collaboration and learning (e.g., curriculum co-development, community of practice).

• Evaluation and Continuous Improvement. Assessment processes for feedback and contin-uous improvement – assessment of student learning, quality pedagogy, student progres-sion, credential attainment and employment, and institutional practices.


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The examples below illustrate how select CAAs are operationalizing quality program design “ideal elements:”

Madera Center Madera Center, a community campus of Reedley College, has a Maintenance Mechanic CAA that offers a one semester entry level certificate program in industrial maintenance, a follow-up, stackable certificate, and an AA degree in welding. The program is housed in its Center for Advanced Manufacturing, an 8,000 square foot facility exclusively for manufacturing programs.

Integrated Supplemental Instruction/Tutoring and Integrated Student Supports: Math and English instructors participated in co-designing the contextualized curricula for the basic courses of the program; more advanced classes in the certificate program are not contextualized. To help students struggling to keep up with the advanced courses because of difficulty with the math concepts, faculty and administrators developed an embedded math tutoring and supplemental instruction strategy within a cohort structure. Student supports include mandatory orientations and an individualized education plan for each student. In addition, Madera Center developed a career transfer center, with a counselor dedicated to helping students connect with employment and/or ongoing educational opportunities. Spillover effects of the CAA practices are emerging across the campus. For example, several depart-ments, including math, English, and philosophy now use embedded tutors in their core courses.

Employer Partnerships: Madera Center has a strong relationship with the advanced manu-facturing industry in its region. An advisory committee, actively engaged from the outset of the program’s launch, has guided curriculum development, evaluated and made purchase recommendations, and donated equipment, visited classrooms and reviewed student work, and conducted mock interviews and provided externships. Madera also recognizes its business partners with the Business Supporter of the Year Award, which has become a prestigious honor among the region’s industry.

• Contextualized Curriculum

• Aligned Pedagogy/Instructional Modality

• Integrated Supplemental Instruction Tutoring

• Contextualized and Integrated Student Supports

• Employer Partnerships

Program Design “Ideal Elements”

What does the implementation of these “ideal elements” look like in select CAAs?When it comes to contextualized teaching and learning in the CAA context, colleges are focusing primarily on quality program design, not on institutionalization. In most cases, colleges have made greater or lesser progress in different “ideal elements,” depending on their own institutional priorities and strengths. However, some version of every CTL quality program design element, including curriculum, pedagogy, instruc-tion, supplemental supports, and employer partnerships, is in place across all CAAs interviewed. This may be attributed to the fact that the quality program design elements are almost entirely within the purview of the CAA, and can be implemented with or without many of the institutional supports. For example, even where a CAA cannot bridge the divide between the CTE and academic faculty to co-develop and co-deliver curriculum, the CAA CTE instructors still provide quality contextualized curricula informed by a robust business partnership.


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Skyline College At Skyline College, CAA programs are serving as a “front door” to the community college for a population that experiences barriers that prevent them from succeeding in college. The CAAs are designed to remove these barriers and connect them to a career pathway, which the college has structured around stackable certificates that are aligned to AA degrees and/or transfer if students want to continue with their formal education. As a result, Skyline College has extended CAAs across a wide range of entry level programs in career pathways, with CAAs in allied health, automotive technology, early childhood education, legal, and domestic warehousing and logistics. In each, students take a one-semester program that bridges to multiple pathways in that field. Skyline College’s CAAs are cohort-based, and structured as learning communities with a focus on specific industries. Importantly for continued learning and career advancement, the college has an accelerated math approach, so that students completing a CAA begin college-level math courses, supported by the CAA learning community and supplemental instruction where needed.

All CAAs at Skyline College have contextualized English courses (the Automotive and Allied Health CAAs also include contextualized math) with aligned experiential pedagogical approaches, embedded tutors roaming in the classes, robust employer and community partnerships, and, starting with the allied health CAA, a contextu-alized soft skills course prepared by a dedicated CAA counselor. This counselor also provides individual support as needed, supplemented by significant student supports provided by an on-site community based program called SparkPoint. The main goal of the contextualization of basic skills is to maintain student momentum. Faculty and student support staff work within a structured bi-weekly community of practice to co-develop curriculum, conduct integrated case management, receive training and professional development, and provide peer support and problem solving.

Across interviewees, evidence of implementation and institutional support “ideal elements” is limited, with the exception of providing facilities for quality instruction and learning. While there is enormous buy-in and enthusiasm of CAA directors, faculty, instructors, and support services staff for high quality CTL program design, structures to support quality implementation and institutional incentives have been more diffi-cult to garner. As a result, CAAs and contextualized teaching and learning continue to be largely viewed by college leaders and faculty as stand-alone programs or practices, rather than a reform strategy that leads to departmental or institutional shifts. Evidence from interviews suggests that when the goals of the CAAs or contextualization are recognized as in sync with institutional priorities, then the presence of implementation or institutional support “ideal elements” is more likely, and the practices are more likely to be embedded into institutional functions. For example, where incentives encourage math and English faculty to participate in CTL within the CAA context, as in the case of Skyline College’s bi-weekly community of practice, the CAAs have more systematic curriculum co-de-velopment/co-teaching, and structured cross-disciplinary collaboration.

El Camino College El Camino College’s Welding CAA is a semester-long program broken into eight-week blocks. The CAA certificate in welding is stackable with other certificates (e.g., aerospace, structural welding) and AA degrees in the Industry and Technology divisions of the college (e.g., AA in Welding Technologies).

Contextualized Curriculum and Aligned Pedagogy: Math instruction, a particularly strong program component, is contextualized, with content and instructional approaches developed through a close collaboration between the math and welding instructors. In this case, the math faculty teaches a basic math workshop contextualized with welding examples. Because the math instructor uses a project-based approach, the course is centered on a welding project where students can apply the basic math concepts they are learning in the course. In addition, the welding classes are taught in such a way as to build students’ English and communications skills.

Employer Partnerships: The Welding AA has deep bonds with local manufacturers, including the burgeoning aero-nautic manufacturing industry. They have an industry advisory group to keep the curricula current and the certifi-cation programs aligned with their workforce needs.


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Los Medanos College The Process Technology (PTEC) CAA at Los Medanos College was developed in response to regional industry needs. It is a three semester, 35 unit certificate program which prepares students for jobs with salaries up to nearly $45/hour. Los Medanos also grants an AA degree in PTEC. As key industries employing process technicians have modernized – e.g., oil refineries, and pharmaceutical and chemical plants – jobs in the field require both famil-iarity with chemical engineering concepts and critical thinking skills, to become in essence “para-engineers.” As a result, the PTEC CAA has refined its curricula to include chemistry and physics. Realizing these classes pose serious barriers to the PTEC students, Los Medanos PTEC and Electrical & Instrument Technology (ETEC) programs are developing a contextualized physics course.

Curriculum Co-Development/Co-Delivery: Informed by and in consultation with industry partners, physics faculty and CTE faculty have co-developed a (credit-bearing) physics course contextualized with PTEC and ETEC concepts, with an emphasis on developing critical thinking skills. The PTEC instructor and physics faculty iden-tified common learning objectives, and they meet bi-weekly to discuss specific problems relevant in the PTEC program and to figure out ways to embed them within the curriculum, including co-developing presentation materials. The physics professor teaches the CTL physics course, employing experiential activity-based pedago-gies and lab work, much of which takes place in groups. In addition, the basic math and chemistry courses in the program are contextualized. However, the CTE instructor develops and teaches this curriculum, as difficulties with getting buy-in from the relevant academic departments within the college persist.

Skyline, Madera, and Laney Colleges In general, CAA programs have experienced challenges in defining their target populations, and conducting effective outreach and recruitment strategies. Because community college programs are open access, reaching students with certain characteristics requires targeted recruitment.

Targeted Student Recruitment and Screening: Skyline, Madera, and Laney colleges have developed screening processes to identify students who are interested and motivated to participate in CAAs. In addition, these colleges designed substantial student on-boarding processes to ensure that students are clear about CAA expectations and requirements for certificate completion in advance of enrollment. Madera Center has well-established partnerships with Adult Probation and the Workforce Devel-opment Office to help with student recruitment, screening, and on-boarding, to ensure expectations between the student and the CAA are aligned.

Program Implementation “Ideal Elements”

• Curriculum Co-Development/Co-Delivery

• Targeted Student Recruitment and Screening

• Faculty Recruitment, Training, and Assignment

• Structured Cross-Disciplinary Collaboration

• Evaluation and Continuous Improvement

While elements of quality implementation are not universally evident, select CAAs provide important insights into how some of the program implementation “ideal elements” are taking shape. The descrip-tions below highlight some promising implementation approaches in CAA colleges.


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Skyline College Skyline College’s president provides the vision, leadership, and tangible support for the CAAs. She has championed the CAA approach, and has prioritized the institutionalization of high impact CAA practices within the fabric of Skyline College’s efforts to restructure itself around student success for all students. Central to operationalizing this vision has been the intentional blurring of the line between CTE and academic programs, and the huge commit-ment to tackling the difficult structural shifts needed to achieve curricular alignment, supportive course sched-uling, and priority registration.

CTE programs are part of divisions composed of both CTE and traditional academic programs of study. With this level of institutional support, most of the framework’s implementation processes are present in the college’s CAAs. Of particular importance are the implementation processes that are uniquely in place at Skyline College, including: systematic faculty recruiting, training, and assignment; structured cross-disciplinary collaboration and evaluation; and continuous improvement.

Faculty recruitment is a collaborative effort that involves support services staff, faculty from multiple departments, Skyline College’s outreach department, and high school and adult school partners. Faculty join CAAs in one of three ways: (1) Deans select them (and deans with strong understanding of the CAAs typically are more successful in selecting faculty); (2) CAA faculty recruit them; or (3) they opt in. Student recruitment strategies include visiting local high schools and adult schools, and inviting students from these schools to Skyline College for CTE career days, campus tours, and special events.

The CAA cross-disciplinary faculty/staff community of practice is the collaborative space where professional devel-opment and collaborative planning regularly take place. It also provides an ongoing platform for curriculum co-de-velopment, training, and shared learning, and for making program refinements when necessary. The teamwork and communication extends to the leadership level: deans across the college meet to plan learning community class schedules, discuss faculty placement and hiring, and provide student support.

In the Skyline College CAA approach, data are systematically collected and used by CAA stakeholders to provide feedback to ensure continuous improvement. Student learning data are analyzed in order to provide faculty with training and assistance to improve their teaching approach. Student persistence and achievement data are tracked with local and regional labor market data, and regular employer updates, to make overall refinements to CAA programming. These data also are used to provide feedback and suggestions to the college about removing possible institutional and organizational barriers to student success efforts.

What are the institutional and structural factors that impede implementation of CTL? Despite progress in putting sound program design into practice, and emerging examples of quality implementa-tion and institutional support, high-level institutional buy-in and corresponding large-scale reform and institu-tional alignment have been difficult to enact. As a result, it has been difficult for colleges to fully implement the “ideal elements” for contextualized teaching and learning, and to fully institutionalize elements of the CAAs.

The most difficult barriers to quality CTL implementation include: 1) the lack of high-level institutional leadership to bridge together the academic and technical sides of the college, and 2) realigning faculty incentives and supports around student success. Both of these challenges are within the purview of the colleges themselves, and implicit in many higher education reforms coming from the state. In the summa-tive evaluation of CAAs, we indicated that the most noted factor in successful contextualization is the degree to which CAAs bring instructors together from academic and technical sides of the college to work together on a regular basis. However, this practice is occurring on a program by program, or course by course approach, and is not yet occurring systemically at most of the CAA colleges. The chasm between the academic and technical sides of the college persists, and current incentives for academic faculty (institutional supports, recognition, and rewards) do not support participation in CAAs, or in contextualizing basic skills learning with a technical subject. Specifically, there continues to be difficulty in recruiting math and English instructors from the academic side to co-develop/co-teach contextualized curricula in the CAAs, as well as sustain participation in systematic cross-disci-plinary collaboration.


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As a result, many CAAs are training and deploying technical instructors to develop contextualized basic skills curricula as a work-around to address pressing student needs. It is noteworthy that CAA interviewees indicated it was much easier to forge successful partnerships with the business community than the academic side of their colleges.

Persistent institutional barriers that plague other student success reform efforts also prevent colleges from implementing CTL “ideal elements” with fidelity. Lack of curricular alignment within and between community colleges, and with transfer systems, is reflected within the CAAs. As a result, there has been difficulty in aligning CAA student pathways with traditional developmental sequences and in enabling students to “count” competencies achieved via contextualized learning toward (or in lieu of) English and math pre-requisites as well as certificate and AA/transfer requirements to create accelerated, stackable credentials with no wasted credits. While CAA stakeholders attempt to create alignment, there are few examples of courses that provide both basic skills and CTE credit, or of colleges that currently have mechanisms to formally recognize English or math compe-tencies achieved via alternate, contextualized coursework. Likewise, course scheduling to accelerate and maxi-mize support for student success continues to be a challenge, impeding students from effectively and efficiently reaching their educational and career goals. Even though the evidence is clear that traditional developmental education strategies impede student success and that accelerated curricula support persistence and completion, traditional developmental course sequences continue to exist in most colleges as the only recognized means by which students can address literacy and quantitative reasoning requirements. Until the developmental educa-tion barrier is addressed college-wide, it will continue to make systematic progress on implementing CTL “ideal elements” difficult.

When CAA and CTL elements are not institutional priorities, the long-term sustainability of the CAAs are at risk. Some interviewees voiced concern that CAA components were not being integrated into the fabric of their institutions, or placed at the center of college-wide student success and policy reforms, even though many of the elements (e.g., accelerated academic catch-up, just-in-time supplemental instruction, contextualized curricula, and experiential learning/pedagogy) are critical to the success of all their students, regardless of program of study. This poses significant risk for long-term sustainability of core elements of the CAA approach, and the CAA’s institu-tional change goals.

What are the implications of these factors for institutional change and sustainability efforts moving forward?

Given the impact CAAs have had on student academic and certificate attainment, and on the current higher education policy climate, there is a strong impetus for colleges throughout California to institutionalize the CAA initiative. CAAs have begun to spark institutional change, and have been experimenting with promising practices for embedding elements of the framework beyond the confines of the grant-funded “CAA Program.”

Nonetheless, the institutional and structural barriers to fully implementing CTL in CAA colleges put long-term sustainability at risk, and impede progress on realizing success for ALL students. Where there has been progress on “ideal” implementation and institutional supports – e.g., faculty incentives, curricular alignment/stackability, and course scheduling/impaction – efforts to embed contextualized teaching and learning into college-wide success efforts have been more effective.

This deeper review of the implementation of contextualized teaching and learning within select CAAs offers important insights for colleges that seek to reorganize around student success. A good starting point for inter-ested stakeholders is to examine the presence or absence of the “ideal factors” for implementing CTL, with a concerted focus on moving beyond sound program design to investigating the implementation and institutional factors that can help support the scaling and sustainability of CTL “done well”.


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Factors Influencing Institutionalization and Sustainability

Based on the experiences of the CAA colleges, there are three levels of factors that influence institu-tionalization: program-, institution-, and community-level factors.

• Program-Level Factors: CAA programming must be high quality; relevant to the institution, its students, and employers; and have a strong infrastructure to support continued implementation. This infrastructure includes existence and use of evidence of CAA success to fuel planning for extension, scaling, or internal replication; dedicated leadership and staff capacity; and faculty and instructor recruitment, retention, professional development, and incentives – including dedicated paid planning time and cross-faculty/instructor supports.

• Institution-Level Factors: Beyond program strength, there are several factors that position the CAA as a “good fit” within the institutional culture and vision: high-level leadership support and multiple cham-pions across many levels within the institution; clear institutional and CAA mission alignment; embedded accountability mechanisms that ensure that the CAA is connected to institutional performance measures and processes for continuous improvement; infrastructure and policies that support cross-departmental exchange and ongoing communications; and institutional incentives and budget allocations specific to the CAA.

• Community-Level Factors: External support and validation for a CAA have positive implications for sustainability (e.g., multi-level institutional connections to employers and community partners). CAAs are more likely to continue if and when they are linked to the community and a broader set of stakeholders who can advocate for program continuity and institutionalization. Both of these factors are dependent upon the CAA’s ability to clearly document and illustrate community demand.

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Appendix: Interviewees and Sources

Physics Instructor (academic)

Beth MaherEast Bay

South Bay

Central

County

Kathi RoisenAlamedaCounty

CAA Adjunct Faculty

David Wahl Contra Costa

Toni Stone

Jim ChinBrian Boomer Dean of Instruction, Madera

PTEC Department Chair,

Workforce Development Advanced

Advanced Reedley

Los

Eva Denise

Process

(Maintenance Madera

Industrial

& Oakhurst Campuses

Math, Chemistry Instructor

Manager/CAA Coordinator

Manufacturing/College/

Medanos

Camino

Technology

Mechanics)Center

(PTEC)

English instructorMaintenanceJennings

Laura Hinckley(Welding)CA

Mina DadgarCAA Technical Career

LA County

Kris PalmerAssistance teamLaddersProject

Director of Research

Senior Director

Senior Consultant

Math Instructor (academic)

William Cruz

Alina VaronaAllied HealthAlina Varona CAA Director

Paul Rueckhaus Allied Health Instructor

Davis Hasson CAA Math Instructor

Lorraine DeMello CAA Counseling

Renee NewellNaomi Castro Aerospace Southern Welding Instructor

REGION CAA

DIRECTOR

CAA CTE

PATHWAY

INTERVIEWEE ROLE

San Mateo

Valley

El

Laney CAA Site Coordinator/CTL

Manufacturing/

Skyline

Peter Simon


CLP

1 National Student Clearinghouse, Shapiro & Dundar, 2014; California Community College Score Card (hyper link to http://scorecard.cccco.edu/scorecardrates.aspx?CollegeID=000#home)2 Bailey, Jeong, and Cho. (2010). http://ccrc.tc.columbia.edu/publications/referral-enrollment-comple-tion-developmental-education.html3 Including the Basic Skills Initiative; the Basic Skills Student Outcomes and Transformation Program; the CCC Linked Learning Initiative; the Career Technical Education Pathways Program; the California Community College Student Success Initiative; the California Career Pathways Trust; and several federally funded Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training Program grants awarded in California, among others.

Endnotes:

Sources

• Martinson, K. (2000). The National Evaluation of Welfare-to-Work Strategies. New York, NY: MDRC, Inc.

• Berns, R.G., & Erickson, P.M. (2001). Contextual teaching and learning: Preparing students for the new economy (The Highlight Zone: Research @ Work No. 5). Louisville, KY: University of Louisville, National Research Center for Career and Technical Education.

• Boroch, D., Fillpot, J., Hope, L, Johnstone, R., Mery, P., Gabriner, R.S. (2007). Basic Skills as a Foundation for Student Success in California Community Colleges (2nd ed.). Sacramento, CA: The Research and Planning Group, Center for Student Success.

• Baker, E.D., Hope, L, & Karandjeff, K. (2009). Contextualized Teaching & Learning: A Faculty Primer. Sacramento, CA: The Research and Planning Group for California Community Colleges, Center for Student Success.

• Jenkins, D., Zeidenberg, M. & Kienzl, G.S. (2009). Educational Outcomes of I-BEST, Washington State Community and Technical College System’s Integrated Basic Education and Skills Training Program: findings form a multivariate analysis (CCRC Working Paper No. 16). New York, NY: Columbia University, Teachers College, Community College Research Center; Wachen, J., Jenkins, D. & Van Noy, M. (2011). “Integrating Basic Skills and Career-Technical Instruction: Findings from a Field Study of Washington State’s I-BEST Model.” Community College Review. Vol. 39, No. 2, 136-159; and, Wachen, J., Jenkins D., Belfield, C., & Van Noy, M. (2012). Contextu-alized College Transition Strategies for Adult Basic Skills Students: Learning from Washington State’s I-BEST Program Model. New York, NY: Columbia University, Teachers College, Community College Research Center.

Wiseley, W.C. (2009). Effectiveness of Contextual Approaches to Developmental Math in California Community Colleges. Doctoral dissertation, University of the Pacific. OR Wiseley S.C. (2011). Effective Basic Skills Instruction; The Case for Contextualized Develop-mental Math. PACE Policy Brief 10-5.

• Joint Report of the NRCCTE Curriculum Integration Workgroup. (2010). Capitalizing on Context: Curriculum Integration in Career and Technical Education, National Center for Career and Technical Education, University of Louisville and Cornell University.

• Perrin, D. (2011). Facilitating Student Learning Through Contextualization. (CCRC Brief No. 53 and Working Paper No. 29). New York, NY: Columbia University, Teachers College, Community College Research Center. (See Appendix Table 1 Evidence for Contextualization.)

• Wiseley, W.C. (2009). Effectiveness of Contextual Approaches to Developmental Math in California Community Colleges. Doctoral dissertation, University of the Pacific. OR Wiseley S.C. (2011). Effective Basic Skills Instruction; The Case for Contextualized Developmental Math. PACE Policy Brief 10-5.

• Joint Report of the NRCCTE Curriculum Integration Workgroup. (2010). Capitalizing on Context: Curriculum Integration in Career and Technical Education, National Center for Career and Technical Education, University of Louisville and Cornell University.

• Perrin, D. (2011). Facilitating Student Learning Through Contextualization. (CCRC Brief No. 53 and Working Paper No. 29). New York, NY: Columbia University, Teachers College, Community College Research Center. (See Appendix Table 1 Evidence for Contextualization.)


CLP


CLP

Equal Measure and CLP wish to acknowledge our team of writers and contributors to this report, including principal authors Meg Long and Debbie Greiff and contributors Peter Simon, Kris Palmer, Linda Collins, and Mina Dadgar. Thank you to CLP team members who informed and helped produce the Brief, including Luis Chavez, Naomi Castro, Brook Sinclair, Roy Robles, Alison Nakashima, and Lindsay Anglin and Equal Measure staff Seth Klukoff. Thanks to the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office (especially Debra Jones and Cynthia McFarland), the current CAA directors (Brian Boomer, Tiffany Miller, Randy Tillery, Eva Denise Jennings, Karen Engel and Alina Verona), community college faculty, administrators, instructors, and partners for your time, insights, expertise, and editing support. We thank the interviewees for informing this Brief with their thoughtful reflection, dedica-tion and exceptional work (see Appendix for full list). Thanks to all who maintain a stalwart focus on supporting all students’ college and career success.

Design: Mike Nicholls | Aaron Miller

Photography: Dan Figueroa | Roy Robles

Acknowledgments

The Career Ladders Project works with community colleges—and their K12, university, community, workforce and employer partners—to improve educational and career advancement outcomes. We foster these improvements through research, policy change and strategic assistance to colleges and their partners.

Address: 678 13th Street, Suite 200 | Oakland, CA 94612

Web: www.careerladdersproject.org | Twitter: @clporg

Printed on recycled paper by Bacchus Press Inc., a Bay Area Green Certified Business

CLPEqual Measure provides evaluation and philanthropic services to social sector organizations. Our areas of focus include aligning systems for stronger outcomes, increasing access and opportunity, building human and social capital, strengthening community capacity, and elevating ideas for innovation.

Address: 1528 Walnut Street, Suite 805, Philadelphia, PA 19102

Web: www.equalmeasure.org

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